Provided there are no more economic surprises, stocks are unlikely to face a near-term meltdown and the S&P 500 could work its way back to 4,000.
That’s according to a team of Goldman Sachs strategists led by David Kostin. The team lifted their three-month target on the index SPX , which has climbed more than 7% so far this year, to 4,000 from 3,600. But Goldman left its year-end forecast at 4,000, roughly in the middle of a Wall Street forecast target range of 3,400 to 4,500.
But the strategists drew a line under that cheerfulness, noting that because a soft economic landing is already priced into U.S. stocks, their year-end target is staying where it was for now. They noted that an outperformance of cyclicals versus defensives implies U.S. real economic growth of 2% against Goldman’s own below-trend forecast of 1% gross domestic product in 2023, and an ISM Manufacturing index of around 55 versus a recent 47 reading.